Isekai Losers!

Vol 2, Chapter 13: Reinforcements?

On a quiet sunny summer day, where the edge of a forest clashes with the green expanse of a massive field, two travellers followed an unremarkable dirt trail.

One of them, a tall fellow, wore no clothes from the waist up, save for a metal helmet hiding his face, as well as the armour covering the entirety of his left arm, and only his left arm. His legwear was plain, weathered from countless months on the road. Two blades of different lengths decorated the man's belt, though both were on the shorter side, or perhaps of average size, merely looking small compared to the man. The lack of any sort of shirt left his large, well-defined muscles on full display. His appearance was impressive and frightening, reminiscent of a gladiator.

His companion, on the other hand, wasn't only significantly shorter than his bulky partner, he was also shorter than an average person. His entire body was covered in dark robes, similar to those a priest would wear. Even his head was covered by a neatly-fitting hood, exposing only his face and nothing else. Furthermore, he wore round, pitch-black sunglasses, hiding his eyes as well. The only things that distinguished this person from a silhouette in the dark were the parts of his face that he couldn't hide, namely his eerie, crooked grin.

All things considered, the two men seemed way too different to be travelling together. The only thing that could yield such a strange pair was perhaps an escort quest, or them coincidentally travelling to the same place at the same time.

"It would seem we've almost arrived at our destination." said the shorter man out of the blue.

The larger man didn't reply, or react in any way really. It was awkward.

"I have high hopes for this operation, I must say." continued the cloaked man, still wearing that uncanny grin. "There's something about the air around here. It's making me quite... excited." 

•••

Yesterday we went into a large goblin nest located within the abandoned mines near Lyugo. Inside, we found about 150 or so regular goblins and 10 of each hobgoblins and goblin shamans, which was extremely unexpected. You won't find more than one of either per nest as they usually take up the role of the boss and don't allow another equal or superior to spawn in their nest and threaten their position, but I digress. This wasn't even close to the strangest thing we found there. Once we dealt with the well-organised ambush of the goblins, we ventured deeper into the mines, finding a couple of captured adventurers and the remains of dozens of fallen adventurers. More importantly, we found food and water, en masse and neatly organised, as well as mined iron and some weapons and armor which were clearly crafted to fit goblins.

It was quite a shock to discover all of that in a goblin nest. Sure, one could argue that the mined ore was left behind by the humans months ago, but what about the crafted weapons? What about the organised food supplies? There's no way the goblins from that nest got all of that food themselves, considering they hardly left the nest. Besides, we would've noticed an increase in ambushes in that area.

The final piece of the puzzle, though, came once we were out of the cave. We made it back to Lyugo with the survivors and reported everything to Penta. He immediately dispatched a group of guards to gather the remains of the adventurers, as well as anything of value left behind. Once the guards arrived, they found that just about every piece of ore, every blade, piece of armor, everything down to the last arrow head and apple was gone.

It became clear—the nest in the mines was only an outpost, a part of something larger. The goblins were instructed to mine iron and received food and weapons in exchange. But who is their business partner in this situation? Could it be another goblin nest? According to Itten and Gabriel's books, there are no records of goblin nests working together in such a way, not even the nests that were led by goblin kings who are infamous for achieving human levels of intelligence. So what could bring the goblins to a level of cooperation that resembles a bandit ring, rather than goblin nests?